Matt and Lisa's Adventures

13 January 2023

Up early for the flight to Paris. We caught the metro to Termini and then caught the Leonardo express train to the airport. We were on the budget airline and had to catch the bus out to our aircraft. Flight was fine and we decided to Uber to the hotel as it was going to require for train trips otherwise. The Uber driver was a character and talked all the way. He was a big fan of Jacinda. At one point he just stopped on the motorway when he didn’t know which off ramp to take. He also stopped the taxi to yell at a woman and ask if he could buy her dog and later stopped the car to remonstrate with someone who refused to cross the road. It was a weird trip but we made it!

We are staying in the hotel Darcet again, which is small but in a great location. Our room had three beds and was bigger than expected however we soon found out that was a mistake and we only have that room for one night before we are moved. 

It was quite late by the time we made it to the hotel, so we had lunch at KFC. It was the weirdest KFC as it didn’t sell normal chicken pieces, only chicken tenders, wicked wings and burgers. I was disappointed as I was looking forward to a quarter pack. We both had burgers in the end and they were quite good. 

After some confusion with the metro tickets we headed to Uniqlo for gloves. Then off to the Eiffel Tower. As always, this is very impressive and we took the requisite photos. Lots of fun watching other people trying to get themselves the perfect photo! We then wandered up a big viewing area. Along the way we crossed a bridge and Lisa tried to insert herself into a fashion photo shoot- she looked right at home! There was a musician playing in the lookout area and we continued to people watch everyone getting their Eiffel photos. 

Lisa was thirsty for a beer and so we found a British looking pub for a quick drink turn back to the hotel for a rest. We went to Hippopotamus (across the road from our hotel) for dinner and shared some ribs and chicken, it was delicious. 

14 January 2023

Lisa has found the Angelina chocolate company with is meant to do the best hot chocolate in Paris and so we were going to go there before our opera house tour. However, by the time we arrived there we didn’t have much time and was a huge line (which was a surprise) so we got our hot chocolate from an Illy cafe. Lisa tried to order it with cream on top, but the staff member just looked completely baffled. 

The opera house tour was fantastic. The building is very impressive and very richly decorated. Highlights:

• Commissioned by Napoleon the third but France had an revolution before it was completed and never got to attend the opera house. There was an emperor’s box but never used by an emperor
• It took 14 years to complete starting in 1861. They ran out of budget and so a few things were cheaped out on, but hard to tell as it is so richly decorated. 
• The architect Charles Garnier was selected based on a competition which was a novel way of selecting someone at that time. He was very good at understanding that most people go to the opera to see their friends and show off rather than watch the show. As a result a lot of the boxes don’t have great views of the state but better cited relative to the other boxes. He also built a lot of areas for the high society people to hang out 
• The outside of the opera house didn’t get good reviews on completion, but people loved the inside.
• The stage is built on a 5% angle. This makes it harder to dance and act on but meant a better view for the audience. 
• The opera house is still working and hosts about 160 performances per year
• They were preparing for a new show and designing the lighting. We could go into the auditorium but the lights were down low. We’re still got a good view of the auditorium but weren’t allowed to take photos. Inside it is certainly massive, richly decorated and incredibly impressive
• The auditorium holds just under 2,000 people. At the time it was the largest in the world and even today there are only a couple which are larger
• On the way in there is a huge staircase with balconies. This was clearly the place for getting a good photo and we saw girls who had come in evening dress to take photos
• One person on our tour asked if there were toilets in the opera house back in the day, the guide confirmed there was. Not sure what they were thinking, did people back in the day not need to urinate? Or would they just do it over a balcony?

From there we went looking for lunch but we were in the high end shopping area and all the eating places were very expensive. The weather was also looking like it was going to rain. After a bit of walking we came across a Pret-a-Manger and Lisa staring frothing so we had lunch there. We both had toasted sandwiches which were fine but expensive. 

From there Lisa went to do some shopping and I went to the science and industry museum. Lisa later joined me at the museum as museums are always more interesting than boring old shopping that you can do in any city (or ideally naked at home if you do it online). Highlights of the museum:

• Huge building with lots of different levels and well set out 
• Had a great temporary exhibition about how people act and move in ground. Fascinating about how behavior changes in these situations. At the end of the exhibit there was a room with one way glass where you could watch people going through to study them and manipulate them by changing the state of lights etc
• Robot exhibit that had lots of working robots
• Good mathematics and science exhibits
• Awesome industry exhibition, started a bit weird with lots of random movies with pictures of things but start you got used to it, it really came together

We then headed back to hotel Darcet. We had previously had a three bed room, but we were being moved to a “bigger room”. The new room turned out to actually be an ok size but down to two beds. We’d bought fancy clothes for Moulin Rouge but there was no iron and so I tried to steam the wrinkles out of my shirt, which was not successful. 

Once dressed up we headed out to find a restaurant. Sadly the weather was raining but we found a decent looking French place. I had a steak and Lisa had horse steak.   We had dessert with Lisa getting a floating meringue dish that she wasn’t sold on. I had an ice cream sundae but I had misread the menu and there was a lot of coconut where I was expecting it to be chocolate! 

It was then off to Moulin Rogue. We had very good seats at the second table back from the side of the stage. This meant we were very close to the performers but it was hard from our position to get an overall sense of the show. Highlights:

• The show was nearly all in French (only a couple of English songs) but it didn’t really matter as there didn’t appear to be any story or plot. 
• The costumes were amazing and very over the top. 
• There were a lot of topless performers. Interestingly there weren’t any busty performers. With the makeup and clothes changes it was often hard to recognize individual performers and so you ended up recognizing them based on their breasts. 
• In between the musical/dance numbers there were interludes. The first was a couple of roller bladers who were on a tiny circular platform. It was amazing watching them spin around when the man would pick up the women and they would spin quicker and quicker. Each time it looked like the women would fly off into the crowd. 
• The second interlude was a man who was standing on higher and higher, less and less stable structures. He was clearly very good at this but played up to the audience that he wasn’t. Lisa looked scared throughout this performance 
• The last interlude was two male gymnasts who were also amazing. 
• One of the scenes had a swimming pool appear from below the stage and the pool contained live snakes in it. A female performer jumped into the pool and proceeded to “wrestle” with the snakes. I knew it was coming from previous reviews I had see online. It was very weird and didn’t feel appropriate in the modern era and animal cruelty concerns. With the outrage I saw online I’m not sure why they keep it as it doesn’t add much to the show
• We got the cancan dance as expected. I thought they would end on that high note but there was another number that followed that
• The dancers were pretty amazing and had a lot of flexibility
• The performers were all clearly lip synching to the songs even though they did appear to have microphones. The lip synching wasn’t very good and was pretty obvious

Overall it was a very over the top and ridiculous show. Good to have experienced it but hard to make sense of what exactly it was. 

15 January 2023

We decided to give Angelina another crack however we had a walking tour at 10:30 to make. When we arrived at Angelina there was another substantial line and it didn’t move quickly. After spending twenty minutes in line and making a little progress we decided to focus on Angelina and put the walking tour off until the afternoon. 

Once we finally got in Angelina’s was very nice. Positions itself as a “tea room” and matched up to that in terms of décor. Lisa was very excited and frothing a little. She got a coffee and I got the hot chocolate that Angelina is famous for. It was described as African hot chocolate and was very thick, rich and delicious. It was served in a little jug with a container of cream next to it. That allowed me to pour the hot chocolate into my cup and add cream as necessary. The cream was required to dilute the richness of the drink. It was also a good serving size. We got two pieces of food, the first was the Mount Blanc which is another specialty of theirs. It was made of chestnut cream and was surprisingly good. Finally we had a lemon tart which helped counter the intense flavors of the Mount Blanc and the chocolate. The food was also very pretty which Lisa got very excited for. Overall it was delicious, but not cheap. A fantastic experience to do. 

After all that eating we decided we needed a walk. We walked through the gardens towards the Concorde area. Once we got there we discovered there was a classic car show and so we wandered around there for twenty minutes. Some of the classic cars looked a lot like the standard cars we are on New Zealand roads, but there were also some quite nice and unusual cars as well. From there we continued up the Champs-Élysées stopping at a few shops as we went. We finally made it to the Arc de Triumph and saw the tomb of the unknown soldier. 

We decided to explore a different area of the city and caught the metro to the Luxembourg area. We had a quick McDonald’s lunch as we weren’t very hungry after the big morning tea. Luxembourg had a nice garden with a lake that we walked around. There were a lot of people out and about including quite a lot using the chairs in the area, and a few that had fallen asleep in the sun! In this park as well as the earlier one we saw lots of runners enjoying the fine but cold and windy weather. We then wandered through the Latin quarter which is the older area of the city with narrow streets and restaurants with good prices. We went past the Shakespeare and company book shop which is quite famous but we didn’t go in as there was a large line. From there we walked to the Hotel de Ville for the start of our walking tour. 

Our guide was Eva. Highlights of the tour:

• Hotel de Ville which is the city hall of Paris. Not sure why it is called a hotel. It has the Olympics rings outside in preparation for the upcoming Paris Olympics in a couple of years
• There have been a few revolutions in France and Paris had been the center of these. Lots of buildings had been restored during these revolutions and then had to be rebuilt. One reason for the wide streets in Paris is that it makes them harder to barricade and so this helps to make future revolutions more difficult
• We walked past the sun chapel which was built to hold some Christian relics including wood from the cross, the crown of thrones and some of Mary’s milk. The chapel is meant to be amazing. The relics were moved to Notre Dame and are currently in the Lourve while Notre Dame is rebuilt
• We walked past Notre Dame to see the damage from the fire. The rebuild is expected to take until 2030
• We walked across the line bridge. People used to attack locks to it as a symbol of their undying love. However the locks added a lot of weight to the bridge and part of it almost collapsed. As a result all of the locks were removed and the bridge fitted with plastic to present people attaching new locks
• We got a good history of the Lourve and the various French kings and emperors which had contributed to it over the years. The main square area has a big temporary structure in it that was being setup for Paris fashion week

After the tour we walked back to the Latin quarter and found a bar with happy hour for a couple of beers. We then found a restaurant for dinner with a good set menu. Lisa had French onion soup, beef stew (which was delicious) and fruit. I had snails, steak and a chocolate mousse. 

While we were at dinner we received an email telling us that our train to Bayeux the morning had been cancelled. This was very disappointing and we searched to find alternative transportation and contacted the guide company. However, it was clear it wasn’t going to get resolved that night and so we headed home to bed. 

16 January 2023

We were meant to have been up early for the train to Bayeux but with the cancellation we had a bit more of a lie in. We decided that we would go to Disneyland instead and purchased tickets online. However, we realized that we chose the wrong day as the weather was wet when we thought it was only going to be cold and the Lourve was closed Tuesday instead of Monday as we had thought. We then couldn’t get the hotel to print out Disneyland tickets and had a crappy expensive breakfast. Not a good start to the day!

We finally got going and caught the train out to Disneyland. Took nearly an hour and Lisa had a scare when the machine wouldn’t accept her ticket, we just ended up feeding my one through twice and that some how worked!

The arrival at Disneyland is very impressive, particularly when you see the castle for the first time. Highlights:

• The initial entry and just seeing all of the people on Main Street USA was very surreal and exciting. 
• Immediately after our arrival there was a parade and we’re got to see lots of dancers and some of the characters on floats. They were pumping loud energetic music out and the musical was contagious. There was a lot of music throughout the day which helped bring the atmosphere alive but at times it was weird having music coming out of the gardens. 
• After an initial walk around we started with the pirates of the Caribbean ride. This was a water based ride and had lots of scenes and characters to see. It was really interesting and a good introduction to the park. 
• We then tried to find some lunch which was challenging. There weren’t great food options and anything which looked ok was very expensive. We ended up getting a hot dog and soft drink each and paid an arm and leg for them. We had to eat them outside as there was no space inside. It was also raining and so this was a real low point of the day. Later on we saw a BBQ restaurant that looked like good food for only fractionally more than what we had paid for lunch
• Next up was the Lion King show. This was half an hour long and essentially a cut down version of the movie with the key songs. It was awesome, the performers were fantastic and the way the sets moved and changed really helped to bring the story to life. 
• We did the Molly Brown steamboat ride. It was a twenty minute boat ride around the lake, not much more to say about that. 
• We went through the phantom house which is a haunted house and ghost ride. The first part was awesome where the room we were in seemed to stretch vertically. The ghost ride was ok but didn’t really have a lot of scares
• We did the Snow White ride which was only ok. It was pretty short and It felt like it told half the story and then just forgot about the other half. 
• Lisa was very excited to do the spinning tea cups as it is the quintessential Disneyland ride. It was short but didn’t need to be longer as after a minute that was enough. 
• The Buzz Lightyear ride was awesome. It was interactive as we were each given a gun to blast the bad guys and could control the spin on our carriage. This was great fun even if the guns didn’t create any sound effects so I had to create my own. I scored about twice as many points as Lisa, so if there is an intergalactic emergency then I’m the person to go to. 
• Our last ride was the Star tours ride. This was based in the Star Wars universe and was a 4D simulator with 3D glasses and seats that moved. It was short but very intense. The movement made it realistic but it also combined to make me feel a bit sick, I don’t think I would want to do a much longer experience of that. The audio was also in French which meant we missed it out on understanding any of the story. 
• Lisa tried to purchase something for Emily but everything was extremely expensive and was largely just plastic crap. 

Thoughts:

• It was a magical experience mostly. The crappy weather really didn’t help things. 
• Amazing the number of people who were there considering it was a Monday in the middle of winter with poor weather
• They had an app with maps etc. It was quite good and provides real-time information on waiting times however it was incredibly slow to load anything with reduced its effectiveness
• The park was absolutely spotless with no litter anywhere
• A lot of people had bought the Mickey ears at €20 each. I hate to think how much money some people had spent on their Disney experience
• It definitely wasn’t possible to do both parks in a single day. 
• There were a few attractions we would have liked to have done but didn’t due to closures or wait times. In particular: Peter Pan flight, cars ride, it’s a small world ride

After Disneyland we grabbed a Starbucks coffee, which Lisa had been hankering for all day. Then caught the train back to the hotel. 

For dinner we went to a Place called Indiana near our hotel. It did American food and Lisa had the Mac and Cheese while I had ribs. It was pretty good. 

17 January 2023

We purchased breakfast from the shop next door which Lisa called the angry lady shop as the lady from there yelled at her last time we were here. This time the angry lady wasn’t there and so we got a croissant and pain an chocolate. 

We then headed to a church on the nearby hill. Lisa had visited this last trip by herself when she went walking on one of my museum days. It was a bit of a hike up the hill but spectacular views of Paris from the top. There was a cable car to get up, but that would be cheating so we walked the whole way. The church itself was also very pretty but we weren’t allowed to take photos – Lisa did so anyway. We then needed a drink and so we found a cute little square but all the cafes were very expensive. Lisa said “let’s just check around the corner” and suddenly there was a Starbucks. I think she planned that. 

After a quick drink we went our separate ways. Lisa went walking and I went to the Orssey museum as the Lourve was closed on Tuesdays. When I got there there was a giant queue to get in. It took about 40 minutes but the line kept moving which meant it didn’t feel as frustrating as it could have. 

Once inside it was lunch time but there weren’t any viable options. There was a cafe but it was a sit down affair and a quiche was €16. So I just went hungry for now. Highlights:

• A great selection of Van Gogh paintings. After seeing an exhibition of his paintings a few years ago in Christchurch with mum and dad I felt like I had more knowledge of his work. It was very cool to see the originals of these
• Paintings by other maters such as Monet, Manet and Renoir. We’re hear about these people so often that to actually see their work was very cool
• A painting of a women’s vulva. I just wasn’t expecting that, but a welcome surprise
• The whistlers mother painting which was made famous from the Mr Bean movie
• Generally just the most amazing detail in the art works. Being able to get up close and see how much detail was in the paintings was fascinating
• It had a really good audio guide which was helpful for understanding what I was viewing. 

The previous night we had booked tickets to a new interactive history museum and so I headed out to a La Defense to meet Lisa and attend this. As I hadn’t had lunch I grabbed a cookie on the way, probably my least exciting lunch of the trip. 

It was the first day of the museum being open and it showed. There was a lot of press going through and the staff were clearly still learning. Unfortunately everything was in French which proved to be a bit of a problem. There were three parts:

• A timeline of history over the past three thousand years. This took us an hour and a half to get through. It was really quite good and we enjoyed trying to translate from the French. It was an interesting summary of the history of humanity. NZ was only mentioned twice: giving women the vote and Ernest Rutherford
• A 360 degrees cinema telling the story of Victor Hugo. It was a cool cinema but as it was all in French we had no idea what was going on. Everyone sat on the ground which was weird and might be a good learning for the museum!
• There were interactive rooms. We only lasted until the second room as it was all in French and we had no idea what was going on. We’re had to back our way out of that

Overall it was interesting. But the web site needed to be clearer that it was French only and no English option. Would have been easy for them to add an English option to the timeline at least…

Next to the museum was a large Westfield where Lisa had been shopping before (no surprise). Wee went there for a a beer. Lisa had a Hoegaarden in a massive glass and immediately regretted her poor choice of beer.

On our previous trip to Paris we had gone out for dinner with my cousin Ben and on our walk to the church we’ had stumbled across the restaurant he took us too. So for dinner we went back to that area. The restaurant (Bimbo) didn’t look like us but we found another one called La Progress. It was the best meal we had in Paris. We had macaroni and cheese and also beef cheek that we shared. For desert I had crepes and Lisa had the crème brûlée. A very good final meal for Paris. 

18 January 2023

After our fantastic experience at Angelina’s we decided we should end out Paris food experience on a high note by returning. So, after packing everything up and checking out we caught the metro there. This time, being midweek, there was no line and we were able to walk straight in and get a table. I had the hot chocolate again but this time Lisa went for a mocha which she said was good but came with a huge amount of cream. We went for different food getting an apple tart and a creamy slice. All of it was again fantastic. 

We then walked some of the food off on the way to the Lourve. When we arrived the line was massive. The museum was meant to have opened at 9am but for some reason didn’t open until we arrived at about 10:30. This meant there was a massive backlog of people. We jumped on the website and quickly booked some tickets. The line was SO slow and it took ages for us to make progress. In the end it wasn’t too bad once we finally got going. There was a group of three in front of us who we were talking to and they got rejected when they got to the front as they were in the wrong line. They had to go and line up again, which would have been heart breaking!

After getting in we picked up audio guides and in an attempt to get more culture into my wife I suggested we use the audio guide to do the masterpieces guided trail. This was meant to have the audio guide lead us around the museum. It did not work like that… The audio guide was very confusing and hard to navigate. We got lost a lot. And then half way through I missed one painting and it got itself completely confused and I gave up. I then did my best to follow Lisa as she continued. 

We had lunch at Paul cafe inside the museum. This was decent food at a reasonable price and something the Orssey could learn from. After lunch we split up to do our separate things before meeting up again at the end. Highlights of the Lourve:

• We went into the Mona Lisa room but there was lots of lining up to see the painting up close. As we’d both seen it before we didn’t bother with that. The crowd did seem as bit rowdy and there was quite a lot of security yelling at people
• The Feast at Cannan on the other side from the Mona Lisa is still amazing and we admired that for a while
• Also great to see the massive painting of Liberty Leading the People and the coronation of Napoleon. Napoleon had his mother added to the painting even though she didn’t approve of him becoming emperor and so she stayed in Rome rather than attending the coronation
• I went through the Egyptian section which was really good. They had a mummy on display and lots of heurgriphucs. They also had a Sphinx on entry which was very cool
• There was a painting of the death of the virgin (Mary) and it was scandalous for a few reasons but one was that it was rumored that the model Mary was a dead prostitute they pulled out of a river
• The Venus de Milo and Winged Victory were both spectacular as always. 
• There was a cool painting of a flying Saint who was releasing people who had prayed to him from prison

Lisa spent about four hours in the Lourve which is a significant improvement of the 45 minutes she spent last time. I’m taking that as a personal victory for me!

After leaving the museum we did a quick final walk along the Seinne before heading back to the Darcet to pickup out stuff and grab an Uber to the airport. 

Charles de Gaulle airport was a bit of a disaster. The security setup was atrocious and one slow idiot held everyone up. There was also no propery bar after security so we ended up with beers from the Relay shop.